VSA-tool: A tool for data visualization in sequence alignment.

Abstract

Sequence alignment is a fundamental and important tool for sequence data analysis in molecular biology. Many applications in molecular biology require the detection of a similarity pattern displayed by a number of DNA and protein sequences. Visual front-ends are useful for an intuitive viewing of alignment and help to analyze the structure, functions, and evolution of the DNA and protein. In this paper, we designed and implemented an interactive system for data visualization in DNA and proteins, which can be used in determining a sequence alignment, similarity search of sequence data, and function interference. Experimental results show that a user can easily operate the system after one hour's practice on the proposed system, which provides a clean output, easy identification of similarity and visualization of alignment data.